Maryland's Oldest Cider Mill: How Weber's Makes its Famous Cider & Donuts

Fall Harvest Days are underway at Weber's Cider Mill Farm in Parkville — with fresh apple cider, pumpkins, hayrides, a hillside slide, barnyard animals, and more.

Weber's Fall Harvest Days run through November 18 at 2526 Proctor Lane. The farm also sells hard cider on weekends and has food trucks every Friday in October.

At Weber's PeachBerry Farm in Glen Arm, pumpkin picking is open every weekend in October. It's also where many of the fruits and vegetables sold in the market at Weber's Cider Mill Farm in Parkville are grown — including the apples.

The apples picked into 20-bushel bins are transported to the Parkville location to be turned into cider.

Weber's is the oldest cider mill in continuous use in Maryland and presses about 15 to 20,000 gallons of cider each year, said Farm Manager Jack Meyers.

"It's amazing the amount of apples it takes to make the cider," said Meyers.

He explained that to get about 3.3 gallons of apple cider, it takes about one bushel of apples, which is about 40 pounds of apples.

"The volume that we have to press in order to meet the demands is, it's a lot of apples that go through the press," Meyers said. "We're making a few thousand gallons a week right now."

Making apple cider

The cider-making process is loud, and the workers wear earmuffs throughout it. The process starts with dumping the apples onto the grading line; then they get brushed and washed, and if there are any bruises, they get cut off.

Then they go through a grinder, where they get ground into a pulp. The pulp is pumped onto cloths; the cloths get folded around the pulp. More layers are stacked on top of each other, and then it all goes through a press.

"It's almost like a coffee filter keeping the pulp inside, and all the juice runs out," said Meyers.

Afterward, it's UV-treated to kill any bacteria left, making it safe for everyone to drink, Meyers explained.

The cider press used at Weber's today came from New Jersey on a train in 1947 and used to run on a Model T engine.

"Any piece of machinery is going to need some updates and some fixing now and then, but they just don't make stuff the way they used to," said Meyers. "It kind of sounds cliché, but for 80 years of pressing cider, I think it's doing pretty good."

Legendary apple cider donuts

Weber's Cider Mill Farm sells apple cider donuts made fresh daily in-house using Weber's cider in the dough.

Weber's makes more than a thousand dozen donuts each day on the weekends in October, according to Meyers, and a few hundred dozen every day during the week.

"We're making them fresh every single day, and we do that so that our customers can get them as fresh as they can," he said.

Gabriel Copenhaver was making the donuts during our visit. He's been working at Weber's for about 3 months.

"I get into like a zen mode whenever I make donuts," said Copenhaver.

After the dough was finished in the mixer, he scooped it into a machine that dispensed the circles of dough into grease and moved them along a conveyor belt.

"This machine dispenses them about every four seconds," he said.

Next, he sugars the donuts and lays them out on a tray for packaging.

"Almost every person that comes in here during the fall is getting at least one, if not three, or a six-pack, or even a dozen to take home," said Meyers.

Weber's farm market

Inside Weber's farm market, you'll find the donuts and cider—including apple cider slushies—along with fresh-baked pies, hand-dipped ice cream, homemade fudge, fresh produce, and numerous kinds of apples.

The market sells two different kinds of apple cider made at Weber's Cider Mill Farm. The regular fresh apple cider is made with a variety of apples; they try to use at least four different kinds of apples per batch. Their Honeycrisp Apple Cider only contains Honeycrisp apples.

"The Honeycrisp cider is a little lighter; it's not quite as heavy," Meyers said. "It's a little more refreshing."

This time of year, the farm is buzzing with seasonal employees who come back each year. According to Meyers, there are about 150 employees this time of year and about 15 full-time year-round.

"This time of year, it's a lot of long days and not a lot of sleep, but it's really rewarding to grow something and see someone enjoy it," he said.

You can learn more here about Fall Harvest Days at Weber's Cider Mill Farm.